Don't hide from me
by velja
Summary: OOTP. In Harry's fifth year, during Christmas Holidays at Grimmauld Place, Harry Potter and Severus Snape wake up in bed together. How did that happen? And what are they gonna do about it?


**A note for all fans of "Of mice and men...":**

I'm sorry to tell you but I don't think I'll finish my "Step by Step" story in the near future. As you can see below, my mind is completely otherwise engaged and I just don't have any idea how to go on with that story. I'm really sorry but I thought I'd owe you the truth. I want to thank everyone who read the story and who reviewed, you've all been wonderful and a great support. Thanks!

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**And now, on to the real reason for this post:**

**My new story!****  
**

**Disclaimer: **All characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I'm just borrowing them for fun and I make no money from playing with them.

**Pairing: **Snarry (Snape/Harry); this is slash, so if you don't like it, don't read it.

**Rating:** I don't know, there are some sexual contents (nothing explicit) and some language abuse (swearing), so possibly somewhere between PG-13 and NC-17.

**Setting: **Book Five (OOTP); takes place during the Christmas Holidays Harry spends with Sirius at Grimmauld Place.

**Summary: Harry wakes up in bed with… well, it's snarry, so… yeah, our beloved potions master. Starts out funny but in the end it's just sappy.**

**Author's note: **This story started out as a funny little piece of nonsense without any plot. You see, I finally wanted my own try on writing snarry fun and then (somewhere between starting it some weeks ago and today when I finally finished it) I got a little carried away with the feelings and romance and stuff. So somehow the funny got lost on the way and the ending of this is hopelessly sappy. This is my first attempt at writing HP, so please be kind. I hope you'll like it anyway.

**This is for my beloved sister Christel, with many thanks for everything. Without you I would've been lost in so many ways.  
**

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**Don't hide from me**

by velja

The first thing Harry noticed when he woke up was the strange sound of snoring. Not that he wasn't used to snoring, mind you. He'd been sleeping in a dormitory with five other boys for more than four years now, so he'd thought that he knew each and every sound a human being could make during sleep.

But this wasn't the usual grunts from Ron or the wheezing from Neville, this was different. The sound seemed to reverberate from the pillow he was resting on, it was humming through his ears and went straight to his belly.

The next strange thing Harry noted was the fact that he was neither lying in his bed in Gryffindor Tower nor at the Dursley's (Thank God!). And he wasn't at the Burrow either. It smelled different.

Harry opened one bleary eye and looked at the wooden ceiling. Then he tried to remember. Where was he?

Oh, right. The memory came back slowly and fuzzy. He'd spent the last week at Grimmauld Place with Sirius. He, Ron and Hermione had joined most of the Order members for Christmas holidays. And last night had been New Year's Eve and they'd celebrated.

If the foul taste in his mouth was any indication, there'd been more than Butterbeer and Firewhiskey involved. His tongue felt like old shoe leather coated in dead rat's fur.

Harry grimaced and pried his other eye open while he tried to decide if his stomach needed to relieve itself from it's dubious contents. But Harry swallowed hard and forced the nausea down again.

There was still someone snoring nearby and Harry's somewhat solid pillow was still vibrating and humming. He lifted his head slowly to have a closer look at it and what he spotted made his stomach do flip-flops all over again.

It hadn't been a pillow he'd been resting on. It turned out to be a chest; a firm and bare and definitely male chest that moved in time with its owner's breathing.

'Bloody hell!' Harry thought and threw a hand over his mouth to stop the shout from coming out. Why was he lying in bed with another man?

For it was definitely a man, a fully grown man and no boy, what with the sparse chest hair that led in a small dark line down to the man's navel and still further down to where it luckily vanished under crumpled bed sheets.

Harry sat up instantly and threw a look at his bed mate's head. Long dark hair was spilled over the white pillow and was also falling into a pale face that was turned away from Harry. Nothing but the nose stuck out of the black hairy curtain, a prominent, hooked and alarmingly familiar nose.

Snape!

"Holy Bucket!" Harry gasped and pulled the sheet up to his chest in panic. Snape stirred at the sudden movement and turned his head towards the noise. But he didn't open his eyes – yet.

Harry didn't know what to do. How the fuck had he ended up in bed with Snape? A naked Snape?

That thought led to more disturbing panic and Harry lifted the sheet from his chest to throw a glance beneath.

"Oh fuck!" he whispered at the sight of his equally naked body.

Fuck, fuck! He was in bed with Snape and they were both starkers! Did that mean that they'd…

"Would you stop pounding on the damn door already?" Snape suddenly groused.

"Huh?"

Harry's head whipped back to Snape whose eyes were still closed. Before he'd thought better of it Harry had answered:

"What pounding? There's nothing there!"

"Oh," Snape replied and lifted a long-fingered hand to rub his forehead, "it must be my headache then."

"Ugh, yeah." Harry mumbled and looked around the room for his clothes. He needed to flee now, before Snape was fully awake! Hopefully he could bolt from this bed, this room and most of all from Snape's memory before…

"Potter!?!"

Too late.

"What the hell are you doing in my bed?" Snape's voice was dangerously low.

Harry let out a heavy sigh and turned back towards the hated teacher. Without lifting his gaze from the sheets he whispered:

"I don't know."

"What?"

"I don't know," Harry repeated slightly louder and added a shaky "sir".

Snape sat up abruptly and growled: "What do you mean, you don't know?" It was then that he seemed to notice the naked display he was presenting for he grabbed the sheets forcefully and pulled them up to his pale chest.

"What were you thinking, you imbecile! Why are you in my bed? Answer me!"

Harry's temper flared at the insult but he tried to shake it off.

"I… ugh, I…"

"Eloquent as ever, Potter, I see." Snape sneered and then his eyes traveled from Harry's face over his barely covered body towards the door. He swallowed hard.

"Get out!" he spat finally.

"What? No!" Harry shook his head forcefully. He wouldn't set one foot out of this bed, let alone the naked rest of his body, for Snape to ogle at. Never mind that he'd probably seen it already last night, he wouldn't humiliate himself any further.

Snape shot him a glare. "I said 'Get out', Potter!"

"No!" Harry yelled back. "You can't throw me out, this isn't your classroom! This is Sirius' home." He crossed his arms defiantly over his bare chest and glared right back at Snape. "I'm staying, you can get out of here!"

Snape held Harry's glare for a few seconds but when the boy didn't show any intent to back down Severus sighed and glanced around the room to take a closer look at his surroundings. Damn, the boy was right, they were in one of the many guest rooms at Grimmauld Place. He recognized the walls with their awful tapestries from his several stays after Order meetings.

Fuck, he was indeed at the dog's house. And, worse, he was in bed with Potter! Naked!

What was he doing here? Had there been an Order meeting last night? Even if it had been, how the hell would an Order meeting lead to whatever-he'd-been-doing in bed with Harry Bloody Potter? Had he been drugged? Poisoned?

Severus threw a short look at the still sulking boy – no, hardly a boy anymore – and knew instantly that he wouldn't need to be drugged or poisoned to notice how physically attractive Potter had become over the past year or so.

He was now, what, fifteen?

Potter was still shorter than most of his classmates, but he wasn't skinny any more. Just slender and well-build. His chest and shoulders had filled out nicely (thanks to Quidditch practice – and probably fighting the Dark Lord several times) and his legs and back were well-muscled. And his ass…

Severus frowned and shook the thoughts away forcefully. What was he thinking? The boy was his student, for God's sake! Was he that desperate to get laid that he needed to fantasize about fucking children? Fucking Harry Bloody Potter?

No way!

Well, on the other hand…

…here he was, Severus Snape, potions master and Ex-Death Eater, spy and pawn for the Light, lying naked in bed next to The Boy-Who-Lived. Who was still sulking and not moving a muscle.

"Potter," Severus addressed the young man finally, "how did we end up like this?"

Harry threw a surprised look at his potions teacher. Snape's voice had lacked it's usual venom and he didn't sneer for once. He looked at Harry perfectly calm. That roused Harry more than anything. How could Snape be so calm when Harry's insides were still trying to digest the fact that he was in bed with a naked Snape? So he ground out forcefully:

"I told you already that I don't fucking know!"

"Language, Potter!" Severus chided and then added almost gentle:

"So, you don't remember a thing?"

"Well," Harry slowly scratched his head and relented, "I remember celebrating New Years Eve with the others. Ron, Hermione, Remus and Sirius."

"What else?" Snape's tone was still soft, friendly.

"Ugh, drinking Butterbeer… and Firewhiskey… and, okay, I remember you showing up suddenly and then… some weird talk with Remus about…" Harry broke off and blushed when he suddenly remembered what exactly it had been he and Remus had talked about.

Snape didn't seem to have noticed Harry's discomfort because he pried further:

"About what?"

"Ugh, hm… about… you?"

"Me?" Snape's eyes shot open and a suspicious snarl crept into his voice when he added:

"And what pray tell where you and the werewolf whispering behind my back?"

"That's private," Harry said, determined not to blush any further. Apparently he wasn't very successful because Snape noticed this time and he sneered:

"Well, since it were obviously **my** private parts you gossiped about I should have…"

Severus broke off when he realized what he'd just said. Private parts? Why had he said that? He'd meant his private **matters** and not… that. He looked over at Potter to see if the boy had noticed the embarrassing slip of tongue.

But Harry was bothered by something else entirely.

"Gossip? We didn't… I mean, we haven't…"

"Oh, right." Snape covered his embarrassment behind the usual vicious sarcasm. "The Golden Gryffindor Boy Who Lived doesn't gossip. You're above such things!"

Harry glared at Snape and thought about a fierce reply. But being too tired for something to come up with he finally took a deep breath and sighed exasperated:

"God, why do you always do that?"

"And what exactly would that be, you imbecile?" Snape was still sneering.

"That!" Harry shouted. "That cold sneer combined with insults and nastiness. You always do that!" Harry sat up straight and twisted his upper body fully towards Snape, who sat leaned against the headboard. "Why do you always have to be so nasty?"

"It's called sarcasm, Mr. Potter."

Harry tilted his head forward and looked straight into Snape's eyes. Dark eyes that narrowed ever so slightly at the closeness. Harry could see a sarcastic glint there, alright, but he could make out something more. Something darker, deeper. Something he'd never thought he'd associate with Snape. A bone-deep wariness, almost fear.

It was right this moment that everything suddenly fell into place for Harry. Everything he'd ever known about Snape, everything the professor had ever said and done, good or bad, in Harry's mind it all suddenly connected with what he was seeing right now in those dark shaded orbs full of well-guarded fear.

And Harry finally understood.

And it was this moment of clearness that made Harry turn away from seeing Snape the greasy potions teacher to seeing Severus, for the first time simply Severus.

Brave and courageous spy, true enough. But at what cost? Forced to always hide his true feelings behind a mask of scorn and disdain, constantly living with the fear of being exposed if the mask were ever to be uncovered. A mask now so firmly attached by time and habit that even Severus himself wasn't able to separate truth from lie, or mask from genuine feelings.

But somehow in this moment Harry could. And now that he'd seen the truth he would never be able to simply go back and see greasy Snape. From now on it would always be simply Severus.

When this realization hit, Harry suddenly didn't care anymore how or why he'd woken up in bed with Severus in the first place. All he cared about was the knowledge that this feeling was right. This was what he'd been waiting for. Severus was.

So when Severus commented Harry's seconds-long lack of response with a single raised eyebrow all Harry could do was smile back and lean closer still.

"Sarcasm you call it?" Harry's voice was deep and barely audible. "I'd rather call it defensiveness."

"What?" Severus gasped. "Defensiveness? Why would I…" Something in Harry's eyes that looked surprisingly like joy made Severus stop in midair.

"…need to be defensive?" Harry continued for him. "You don't, not with me." He smiled and stretched his hand out to place one palm softly against Severus' cheek. Unaware of doing it, Severus leaned into the touch and closed his eyes when Harry went on:

"But you've had to hide your feelings behind that mask for so long now that nobody remembers it to be nothing but a mask. They all have forgotten you're wearing it. Even you. You don't remember anymore how to not hide, do you Severus?"

The truth of Harry's softly spoken words combined with the intimate gesture and the use of his first name shook Severus to the core. All the defenses he'd built up over the years came crumbling down with the startling knowledge that here was suddenly someone who understood him completely. Someone who knew him.

He didn't bother that it was Harry Potter, the bane of his existence. He didn't bother that it was someone more than half his age, or a male for that matter. It didn't bother Severus for all that mattered was that finally, finally there was someone to see his true self, to really see him.

Severus.

No more but no less either. Simply him.

So when he heard Harry's whispered "Don't hide from me, Severus." he didn't. He opened his eyes and let Harry in, let him see it all.

And then he grasped the smiling face with both hands and pulled Harry into a rough kiss.

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**The End**

**  
I'm thinking about writing more of this. Maybe a sequel or maybe a prequel (to show how Harry and Severus ended in bed in the first place), or maybe something different alltogether. Let me know what you think, if you like it or not, of you want more... just let me know, okay? Thanks. **


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